KESIDENCE AT BEELIN TO THE KEVOLUTION OF JULY. 131 



welcome you have accorded me cannot fail to add the sacred 

 ties of gratitude to those already binding me to our common 

 fatherland. 



6 How could this national unity be more forcibly expressed 

 than by this Association, gathered for the first time within 

 these walls? From the smiling valleys of the Neckar the 

 birthplace of Kepler and Schiller from the eastern boundaries 

 of the plain of the Baltic, and thence to the mouths of 

 the Rhine, where the emporiums of commerce have been for 

 centuries enriched by the treasures of nature in their exotic 

 loveliness the students of science, animated by the same zeal 

 and inspired by the same thought, have gathered together to 

 this assembly. Wherever the German language is spoken, 

 influencing by its thoughtful structure the mind and character 

 of the people from the snowy regions of the Alps to the 

 farther shores of the Vistula, where, in the land of Copernicus, 

 astronomy is once again cultivated with glorious results every- 

 where where the German has penetrated, he has been distin- 

 guished by the endeavour to search out the secret workings of 

 the forces of nature, whether in the realms of space, amid the 

 problems of mechanics, in the unyielding crust of the earth, 

 or in the structure of animal organisms. 



' Beneath the protection of noble princes, this Association has 

 yearly grown in interest and importance. Every element of 

 disunion, arising from religious differences or political op- 

 position, is here laid aside. Germany manifests herself in 

 her intellectual unity; and as the acknowledgment of truth 

 and the inculcation of duty is the highest aim of morality, so 

 this feeling of unity can never weaken in any of us the bonds 

 that endear us to the religion, the constitution, and the laws 

 of our country. Even amid the disunion in the political life 

 of Germany, this emulation in intellectual effort may yet be 

 productive as the glorious history of our country proves 

 >f the grandest results in the cultivation of benevolent 

 feeling, the increase of knowledge, and the advancement of art. 

 The association of the scientific men of Germany has had 

 reason to rejoice since its last meeting at Munich, where it met 

 with such a hospitable reception, in the lustre it has acquired 

 through the flattering sympathy of neighbouring states and 



K 2 



